See that pink fuzzy critter in the middle of this dried oak leaf? I thought it was some form of caterpillar cocoon. Some, nice cozy home out of which a butterfly or moth would hatch, with the fuzzy form being suitably appropriate to our Minnesota winters. Ha! I was close, but no cigar. This is a gall. Galls are formed by the activity of insects or mites on plants, including oak leaves, however, the galls…
Every year, for as long as we have been in this house (20+ years), probably longer, the grape vines, which seem to originate at the back of the yard near the shed, take over. They snake across the clothes lines and up into the trees, dominating small bushes so that we can’t see them. In at least one (maybe two) areas of the yard, the vines are so thick over the bushes that you could…
I am avoiding doing dishes by writing a blog post. Don’t feel sorry for me. I haven’t done dishes in days, so I’m just using that as an excuse to write a blog post, although I really need no excuses to avoid the dishes or to write blog posts. I could also be folding laundry right now. Instead, I’d like to show you some pictures of leaves I took at the Como Park Conservatory just…
Continuing my floral-themed somewhat frivolous blog posts (frivolous only because they don’t take long to write, but not in terms of the beauty of these plants), here are a couple of photos from the hostas we have in the yard. We were fortunate to adopt what turned into an entire bed of hostas (and then some) from a gardener who was thinning her plants a few years ago. The hostas are looking healthy and gorgeous…